1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates in general to the field of computers, and more particularly to the use of computer software. Still more particularly, the present disclosure relates to the emulation of a web service.
2. Description of the Related Art
Enterprise-level systems, which involve complex integration of functional components, typically require end-to-end testing prior to deployment into production. In many industries, such as finance and banking, the feasibility of fall-scale testing is often hindered by a lack of test data and/or a lack of functional components. This shortcoming is usually traceable to security and privacy issues, as well as to the lack of time and resources required to configure functional components for operating in test mode.
The use of “web services” as an integration paradigm has recently found widespread acceptance in the software services industry, primarily due to the web services' ability to integrate heterogeneous components in a loosely coupled manner. While such web services are an efficient means for leveraging software resources, testing all or a portion of these services is difficult, if not impossible, without monopolizing, or possibly damaging, services and supported operations provided by the web services.